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ABSTRACT
Interpretation of image contents is one of the objectives in computer vision specifically in image processing. In this era it has received much awareness of researchers. In image interpretation the partition of the image into object and background is a severe step. Segmentation separates an image into its component regions or objects. Image segmentation t needs to segment the object from the background to read the image properly and identify the content of the image carefully. In this context, edge detection is a fundamental tool for image segmentation. In this paper an attempt is made to study the performance of most commonly used edge detection techniques for image segmentation and also the comparison of these techniques is carried out with an experiment by using MATLAB software.
Keywords
Computer Vision , Image Segmentation , Edge detection, MATLAB.
1. INTRODUCTION
Image segmentation is an essential step in image analysis. Segmentation separates an image into its component parts or objects. The level to which the separation is carried depends on the problem being solved. When the objects of interest in an application have been inaccessible the segmentation must stop. Segmentation algorithms for images generally based on the discontinuity and similarity of image intensity values. Discontinuity approach is to partition an image based on abrupt changes in intensity and similarity is based on partitioning an image into regions that are similar according to a set of predefined criteria. Thus the choice of image segmentation technique is depends on the problem being considered. Edge detection is a part of image segmentation. The effectiveness of many image processing also computer vision tasks depends on the perfection of detecting meaningful edges. It is one of the techniques for detecting intensity discontinuities in a digital image. The process of classifying and placing sharp discontinuities in an image is called the edge detection. The discontinuities are immediate changes in pixel concentration which distinguish boundaries of objects in a scene. Classical methods of edge detection engage convolving the image through an operator, which is constructed to be perceptive to large gradients in the image although returning values of zero in uniform regions. There is a very large amount of edge detection techniques available, each technique designed to be perceptive to certain types of edges. Variables concerned in the selection of an edge detection operator consist of Edge orientation, Edge structure and Noise environment. The geometry of the operator establishes a
DOI : 10.5121/ijcsit.2011.3620 259
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characteristic direction in which it is most perceptive to edges. Operators can be optimized to look for vertical, horizontal, or diagonal edges. Edge detection is a difficult task in noisy images, since both the edges and noise hold high- frequency content. Efforts to reduce the noise result in unclear and distorted edges. Techniques used on noisy images are typically larger in scope; therefore they can common enough data to discount localized noisy pixels. This results in less perfect localization of the detected edges. Not all edges involve a step change in intensity. Things such as refraction or reduced focus can result in objects through boundaries defined by a regular change in intensity. The method wants to be chosen to be receptive to such a regular change in those cases. So, there are some problems of fake edge detection, edge localization, missing true edges, problems due to noise and high computational time etc. Hence, the objective is to do the comparison of a variety of edge detections and analyze the performance of the different techniques in various conditions. In this paper an attempt is made to review some of the most commonly used edge detection techniques for image segmentation and also performances of such techniques is carried out for an image by using MATLAB software. Section 2 introduces the basic concepts that are mostly employed in the literature. Section 3 provides a comprehensive theoretical and mathematical background for edge detection and explains different computing approaches to edge detection. Section 4 presents the comparison of various edge detection techniques with an image. Section 5 contains a quick discussion about the reviewed works as well as conclusion.
2. IMAGE SEGMENTATION
Image Segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple regions or sets of pixels. Essentially, in image partitions are different objects which have the same texture or color. The image segmentation results are a set of regions that cover the entire image together and a set of contours extracted from the image. All of the pixels in a region are similar with respect to some characteristics such as color, intensity, or texture. Adjacent regions are considerably different with respect to the same individuality. The different approaches are (i) by finding boundaries between regions based on discontinuities in intensity levels, (ii) thresholds based on the distribution of pixel properties, such as intensity values, and (iii) based on finding the regions directly. Thus the choice of image segmentation technique is depends on the problem being considered. Region based methods are based on continuity. These techniques divide the entire image into sub regions depending on some rules like all the pixels in one region must have the same gray level. Region-based techniques rely on common patterns in intensity values within a cluster of neighboring pixels. The cluster is referred to as the region in addition to group the regions according to their anatomical or functional roles are the goal of the image segmentation. Threshold is the simplest way of segmentation. Using thresholding technique regions can be classified on the basis range values, which is applied to the intensity values of the image pixels. Thresholding is the transformation of an input image to an output that is segmentated binary image. Segmentation Methods based on finding the regions directly find for abrupt changes in the intensity value. These methods are called as Edge or Boundary based methods. Edge detection is the problem of fundamental importance in image analysis. Edge detection techniques are generally used for finding discontinuities in gray level images. To detect consequential discontinuities in the gray level image is the important common approach in edge detection. Image segmentation methods for detecting discontinuities are boundary based methods.
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Gx
Gy
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-1 0 +1
-2 0 +2
-1 0 +1
-1 -2 -1
0 0 0
-1 +2 +1
Gy
The Prewitt edge detection is proposed by Prewitt in 1970 (Rafael C.Gonzalez [1]. To estimate the magnitude and orientation of an edge Prewitt is a correct way. Even though different gradient edge detection wants a quite time consuming calculation to estimate the direction from the magnitudes in the x and y-directions, the compass edge detection obtains the direction directly from the kernel with the highest response. It is limited to 8 possible directions; however knowledge shows that most direct direction estimates are not much more perfect. This gradient based edge detector is estimated in the 3x3 neighborhood for eight directions. All the eight convolution masks are calculated. One complication mask is then selected, namely with the purpose of the largest module.
-1 0 +1
-1 0 +1
-1 0 +1
-1 -1 -1
0 0 0
+1 +1 +1
Gx
Gy
Prewitt detection is slightly simpler to implement computationally than the Sobel detection, but it tends to produce somewhat noisier results.
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k0 3 3 E = 3 0 3 3 k4 5 3 W = 5 0 5 3
5 5 5 3 3 3
k1 5 3 5 5 3 0 N = 3 NE = 5 3 3 3 3 k5 3 3 3 3 SW = 5 0 3 S = 3 5 5 5 3
k2
5 3 5 NW = 5 0 3 0 3 3 3 3 3 3 k6 k7 3 3 3 3 5 0 3 SE = 3 0 5 3 5 5 5 5 5
k3 5
The edge magnitude is defined as the maximum value found by convolution of each mask with the image. The direction is defined by mask that produces the maximum magnitude. Example, mask k0 corresponds to a vertical edge, while mask k5 corresponds to a diagonal edge. Notice that the last four masks are actually the same as the first four, but flipped about a central axis.
r0 1 0 1 E = 2 0 2 1 0 1 r4 1 0 1 W = 2 0 2 1 0 1
2 0 1 0 1 NE = 2 1 0 r5 0 1 2 SW = 1 0 1 2 1 0
r1 1
1 0 1 2 0 NW = 1 0 1 N= 0 0 1 2 1 0 1 2 r6 r7 1 2 1 2 1 0 0 SE = 1 0 1 S= 0 0 1 0 2 1 1 2
r2 2
r3 1
The magnitude of the gradient is the maximum value gained from applying all eight masks to the pixel neighborhood, and the angle of the gradient can be approximated as the angle of the line of zeroes in the mask yielding the maximum response.
International Journal of Computer Science & Information Technology (IJCSIT) Vol 3, No 6, Dec 2011
Smooth the image using a Gaussian Apply a two-dimensional Laplacian to the smoothed image (often the first two steps are combined into a single operation) Loop through the result and look for sign changes. If there is a sign change plus the slope across the sign change is greater than some threshold, mark as an edge. To get better results it is possible to run the result of the Laplacian through a hysteresis alike to Cannys edge detection although this is not how the edge detector was firstly implemented.
2 f =
2 f 2 f + x 2 y 2
It has two effects, it smoothes the image and it computes the Laplacian, whch yields a doubleedge image. Locating edges then consists of finding the zero crossings between the double edges. The digital implementation of the Laplacian function is usually made through the mask below,
0 -1 0
-1 4 -1
0 -1 0 Gx
-1 -1 -1
-1 8 -1
-1 -1 -1 Gy
The Laplacian is generally used to found whether a pixel is on the dark or light side of an edge.
Unlike Roberts and Sobel, the Canny operation is not very susceptible to noise. If the Canny detector worked well it would be superior.
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4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
This section presents the relative performance of various edge detection techniques such as Roberts edge detector, Sobel Edge Detector, Prewitt edge detector, Kirsch, Robinson, MarrHildreth edge detector, LoG edge detector and Canny Edge Detector. The edge detection techniques were implemented using MATLAB R2009a, and tested with an image (Bharathiar University). The objective is to produce a clean edge map by extracting the principal edge features of the image. The original image and the image obtained by using different edge detection techniques are given in figure.
Original
Roberts
Sobel
Prewitt
Kirsch
Robinson
Marr-Hildreth
LoG
Canny
Figure: Original Image with the result of various edge detection techniques Roberts, Sobel and Prewitt results actually deviated from the others. Marr-Hildreth, LoG and Canny produce almost same edge map. Kirsch and Robinson edge maps are almost same. It is observed from the figure, Canny result is superior by far to the other results.
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5. CONCLUSION
In the discipline of computer vision, image processing is a quickly moving field. Its growth has been fueled by technological advances in digital imaging, computer processors and mass storage devices. In this paper an attempt is made to review the edge detection techniques which are based on discontinuity intensity levels. The relative performance of various edge detection techniques is carried out with an image by using MATLAB software. It is observed from the results Marr-Hildreth, LoG and Canny edge detectors produce almost same edge map. Canny result is superior one when compared to all for a selected image since different edge detections work better under different conditions. Even though, so many edge detection techniques are available in the literature, since it is a challenging task to the research communities to detect the exact image without noise from the original image.
REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] Canny, J. F (1983) Finding edges and lines in images, Master's thesis, MIT. AI Lab. TR-720. Canny, J. F (1986) A computational approach to edge detection, IEEE Transaction on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 8, 679-714. Courtney. P & N. A. Thacker (2001) Performance Characterization in Computer Vision: The Role of Statistics in Testing and Design, Chapter in: Imaging and Vision Systems: Theory, Assessment and Applications, Jacques Blanc-Talon and Dan Popescu (Eds.), NOVA Science Books. Hanzi Wang (2004) Robust Statistics for Computer Vision: Model Fitting, Image Segmentation and Visual Motion Analysis, Ph.D thesis, Monash University, Australia. Huber, P.J. (1981) Robust Statistics, Wiley New York. Kirsch, R. (1971) Computer determination of the constituent structure of biological images, Computers and Biomedical Research, 4, 315328. Lakshmi,S & V.Sankaranarayanan (2010) A Study of edge detection techniques for segmentation computing approaches, Computer Aided Soft Computing Techniques for Imaging and Biomedical Applications, 35-41. Lee, K.. M, Meer, P. & et al. (1998) Robust Adaptive Segmentation of Range Images, IEEE Trans. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 20(2), 200-205. Marr, D & E. Hildreth (1980) Theory of edge detection, Proc. Royal Society of London, B, 207, 187217. Marr, D(1982) Vision, Freeman Publishers. Marr, P & Doron Mintz, D. & et al. (1991) Robust Regression for Computer Vision: A Review, International Journal of Computer Vision, 6(1), 59-70. Orlando, J, Tobias & Rui Seara (2002) Image Segmentation by Histogram Thresholding Using Fuzzy Sets, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Vol.11, No.12, 1457-1465. Punam Thakare (2011) A Study of Image Segmentation and Edge Detection Techniques, International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering, Vol 3, No.2, 899-904. Rafael C. Gonzalez, Richard E. Woods & Steven L. Eddins (2004) Digital Image Processing Using MATLAB, Pearson Education Ptd. Ltd, Singapore. 266
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